


i can't run no more with that lawless crowd

by lanyon



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-08
Updated: 2012-08-08
Packaged: 2017-11-11 17:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles Stilinksi couldn’t hold a grudge if it was velcroed to his hands.</p><p>(Stiles visits Allison, after everything. This is not an excuse and it is not justification. This is a story about grief.)</p><p> </p><p>  <b>[spoilers up to 2.11]</b></p>
            </blockquote>





	i can't run no more with that lawless crowd

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tigs (Huzzah)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Huzzah/gifts).



> +Warnings for discussion of character death, with specific emphasis on the loss of a parent and vague descriptions of cancer.  
> +This is for Tigs, who inspired me to write it.  
> +Title from Leonard Cohen's _Anthem_.

Stiles Stilinksi couldn’t hold a grudge if it was velcroed to his hands. He might threaten to kill Scott and he might rant about the injustices in chem class, on the lacrosse team and in the whole world, but his threats are invariably empty.

(Stiles Stilinksi was, of course, the sort of boy who would cry at road kill and crushed butterflies.)

He thinks he stopped being able to cry when his mother died. His fatherlooked at him, over the top of off-white hospital bedsheets and off-grey skin and the glint of an engagement ring on Stiles’ mother’s finger, and he was afraid. His father, who fights bad guys and who is one of the good guys, was afraid. 

Stiles has never quite managed to unsee the fear in his father’s eyes and, emotional entanglements with werewolves and Lydia Martin, aside, he has done his best to undo it. Misdemeanours and stealing police vehicles and a critical analysis of foreskin removal on Coach’s final have, perhaps, not been the ideal approach but caring for his father is a work in progress. Stiles Stilinksi is a work in progress. 

He knows what it is to lose a parent. He was eight. His mother wore a red scarf, wrapped around her head like a turban, even though Stiles was not afraid that she had no hair. 

“Why are you here, Stiles?” Allison’s voice is dull. Her face is bruised. Werewolves fight back. 

He wonders whether he should tell her the truth. I’m the most qualified to talk to you. I can show you my resume, if you like. We have a lot in common. No mothers and fathers who like to carry guns. Well, I don’t know if my dad actually likes to carry a gun but people don’t respect a sheriff’s badge without it.

“I wanted to see how you are,” he says. It’s not a lie. Maybe Derek’s more qualified. His whole family died, in one fell swoop, but Argents and Hales are like oil and water and have you ever seen a burning oil slick on the ocean? 

“My aunt’s dead. My mother’s dead. My grandfather’s - ”

Stiles holds up a hand. It’s trembling slightly. Too much or too little Adderall. Too much caffeine. Too many Lucky Charms and curly fries. He looks away from his hand. “I’m so sorry, Allison. I know it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just words.” Everything Stiles ever says is just words until he says something smart and everyone looks at him like he’s a dog who’s just managed a particularly complex trick. “I don’t know what to say, Allison.”

“Tell me that it gets better,” she says. Her voice is harsh and not at all like Allison Argent. Her hands are trembling, too, and the bandages around her knuckles are pristine white. 

He can’t lie. He’s no good at lying. He has stared his father in the face and lied until his insides are tied up in knots. He is so good at lying. 

Stiles could tell her the truth. He could tell her that her mother died because she tried to kill Scott. He could talk about broken rings of mountain ash and Derek’s eyes and so many shades of red. He could but he won’t.

He will tell her the truth.

He shakes his head. “Not really,” he says. “It doesn’t get better. It doesn’t go away.” No matter how many werewolves you want to put down, he doesn’t say. No matter how much blood you shed. “But you get used it. Like a scar, or something.” 

He has a scar, hidden in his hair, from when Scott hit him with a lacrosse stick when they were eleven and all the big boys played in the park. He wonders if Scott still has scars from when they were children and everyone had mothers and fathers.

Stiles wonders if he’s jealous of Allison. A monster killed her mother and it is not inhuman to want that monster dead. Renegade cells killed his mother and he could only watch helplessly. There was no revenge; just cloying lilies in the hallway and an elderly relative spitting on a kleenex and wiping at a smudge on his face. 

He decides he is not jealous of Allison. It is not just that he loves Scott and he feels something for Derek that he can’t quite describe. Not yet. Not when there’s too much pain and everything is the colour of mourning and so many shades of red. 

“Your mother wasn’t murdered,” Allison says. She’s not looking at him, though.

“I still.” He bites his lip. “I still lost her. She was still taken away from me and my dad.” He wonders if Allison has reached that stage; the point at which she will look in the mirror and say _it should have been me._

Allison doubles up and Stiles doesn’t know what pain it is. “I don’t know how to get through this,” she says. 

There are tears. Oh god. Stiles knew there would be tears, just as he knows that he has no idea how to deal with girls crying, unless they are Lydia Martin and crying beautifully in the parking lot. 

“Ms Morell said something,” he starts -

Unbelievably, Allison raises her head and she smiles and maybe she does cry as beautifully as Lydia. “If you’re going to quote Winston Churchill at me - ”

Stiles feels his lips stretch into an answering grin. He did not know there could be smiles in this hospital room. “We shall fight on the beaches,” he says, in his best Churchill voice.

They laugh. They actually laugh together, Stiles and Allison. There is laughter. There is laughter in this hospital room. 

“Can werewolves swim?” asks Allison but she’s the hunter or she’s hunter-born.

Stiles stares at her. A rabbit caught in the headlights, or in the jaws of a wolf, or in the sights of a gun. 

Allison isn’t really smiling anymore. “My father told me.” Her voice is quiet. “About what Mom - ”

Stiles reaches out and touches her hand and the pristine, white bandages.

“I can’t forgive him,” she says. 

He can’t forgive your family, Stiles doesn’t say. It’s oil and water. Two wrongs cannot make a right and the whole world is an unforgiving place.

“You don’t have to,” Stiles says, instead. Killers can be forgiven, he thinks, but it is an unsettling idea. Stiles is a mass of forgiveness. He has an overabundance of forgiveness so maybe that will be enough, in the future, though he will never be like Scott. He will never need both Allison and Derek. It is his choice to follow in his father’s footsteps or not. There’s no time of month to govern his moods, or his thoughts, which are as wayward as dandelion seeds. 

He is free. It is exhilarating. He takes a deep breath and smiles. “We’re all here for you,” he says. It’s more or less true. Everyone is here, in intensive care beds or out in the parking lot, eavesdropping. “When you’re ready, we’re here.” 

He thinks it’s the right thing to say. 

Visiting hours are over but Allison’s room is brighter by a few balloons and an unopened card from Scott. It’s brighter by some smiles and some promises. 

Stiles goes outside and Scott is there, and Derek too. Derek’s nostrils flare and Stiles just smiles sunnily and pats his shoulder. Icky hunter smell is the very least Derek deserves.

“Did you fix it?” asks Derek because he’s a werewolf and honestly can’t tell. 

Stiles shakes his head. Everything is so broken and there are so many lost pieces that it can’t be fixed. 

“We’re going to have to get a new one,” he says and both Derek and Scott look confused. Stiles is satisfied, though. Their home can’t be fixed because too many people have died and too much blood has been shed and has seeped into the earth. The foundations are firm, though. There’s a pack, or a family, and there’s a feud as wide as the sea and there will have to be new codes and earthquakes and seismic, tectonic shifts. 

Stiles taps the side of his head. “Fear is the mindkiller. You should look into rebuilding your house, man. We’re gonna need somewhere to hang.” 

“Stiles, I honestly have no idea if you’ve made it better or worse.” Scott looks up at Allison’s window. 

“Welcome to my brain,” says Stiles. He looks up, too, and maybe, late tonight, Allison will breathe on the window pane and she’ll see that it’s better. It will get better. (Stiles is no good at lying.)


End file.
